Operation Shah Euphrates ( tr, Şah Fırat Operasyonu) was an operation by the Turkish military to relocate the

tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...

Suleyman Shah Suleyman Shah ( ota, سلیمان شاه; Modern tr, Süleyman Şah) was, according to Ottoman tradition, the son of Kaya Alp and the father of Ertuğrul, who was the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. Early Ottoman genealogi ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

conducted on 21/22 February 2015. The tomb, which was positioned inside Turkey's only foreign enclave, had been surrounded by self proclaimed

Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL) forces for over 4 months. Due to the presence of ISIS, the exclaves garrison was recently raised from eleven Turkish soldiers to thirty eight.

Operation

On the night of 21–22 February 2015, a

Turkish military The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; tr, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK) are the armed forces, military forces of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey. Turkish Armed Forces consist of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, General Staff, the Turki ...

convoy including 600 Turkish troops, tanks and other armored vehicles numbering about 100 entered Syria to evacuate the tomb's 38 guards and relocate the remains. The operation was conducted through the border crossing of Kobani. According to

Hasip Kaplan Hasip Kaplan (born 1 January 1954, Dirsekli, İdil, Dirkseli, İdil District, İdil, Turkey) a Kurds in Turkey, Turkish politician of Kurdish origin and former member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for several parties, in 2015 he repre ...

of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the Kurdish

People's Defense Units The People's Defense Units (YPG), (YPG) ; ar, وحدات حماية الشعب, Waḥdāt Ḥimāyat aš-Šaʽb) also called People's Protection Units, is a mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democr ...

(YPG) shall have been supporting the rescue.

Reactions

Despite Interior Minister

Efkan Ala Efkan Ala (born 21 February 1965) is a Turkish politician and former civil servant who served as the Minister of the Interior from November 2015 to August 2016;. He previously held the same post from 2013 to June 2015 despite not being a member ...

was denying reports that the Turkish army had to flee from ISIS militants the party leaders of the

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...

(CHP) and the

Nationalist Movement Party The Nationalist Movement Party (alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party; tr, Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) is a Turkish far-right and ultranationalist political party. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has been ...

(MHP),

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (born Kemal Karabulut, 17 December 1948) is a Turkish economist, retired civil servant and social democratic politician. He is leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and has been Leader of the Main Opposition in ...

and

Devlet Bahçeli Devlet Bahçeli (born 1 January 1948) is a Turkish politician, economist, former deputy prime minister, and current chairman of the far-right, ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). An academic in economics from Gazi University, B ...

both condemned the fact that Turkish soldiers retreated from the tomb. The retreat from an exclave from Turkish sovereign territory was seen as a defeat. The tomb complex was destroyed to prevent its use by

ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

New location

The tomb is now located in Turkish-controlled territory 200 meters inside Syria, 22 km (14 mi) west of Kobani and 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Euphrates, less than 2 km (1.2 mi) southeast of the Turkish village of Esmesi (Esmeler or Esme or Eshme) that is in southernmost

Birecik Birecik; ku, Bêrecûk is a town and district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on the Euphrates. Built on a limestone cliff 400 ft. high on the left/east bank of the Euphrates, "at the upper part of a reach of that river, which runs near ...

District. Prime Minister of Turkey at the time,

Ahmet Davutoğlu Ahmet Davutoğlu (; born 26 February 1959) is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey and Leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from 2014 to 2016. He previously served as ...

said that later a new tomb will be constructed in Syrian territory.

References

2015 in Syria Birecik District Shah Euphrates Shah Euphrates 2015 in Turkey Syria–Turkey relations Cross-border operations of Turkey into Syria Military operations of the Syrian civil war involving the People's Protection Units {{mil-stub